The Loss
by BloodyAlexy
Summary: When six becomes four, the pain is left to the rest to feel. No OCs, no slash. Rated K plus for character death. It focuses on all main four equally, but I chose Skipper and Rico to state, because... I wanted so.


"Where did Rico put the salt?" Private muttered as he looked around the kitchen. He needed salt for Kowalski's fish, the scientist held a mysterious passion for the salt. Skipper had been keeping warning him about the health of kidneys, but Kowalski repeated everytime that it was good for brain.

Private was starting to get irritated for the lost salt. He was preparing fish for each member of the squad in the way they liked their fish - extra-spicy for Rico, fried in organic oil for Johnson, sauced with liquor for Skipper and topped with hot butter for Manfredi. Of course he couldn't prepare Kowalski's without salt!

The young penguin wanted to surprise his seniors. He had given up on pouting everytime they didn't take Private with them for the missions rated above C. He was just a military student after all, it was forbidden for him to go on those kinds of missions by the penguin law. So he decided to welcome them with a dinner, he was good at cooking and the team deserved to learn this skill of Private's. He just hoped not to be put in charge as the cook of the team for eternity.

He jumped as he heard the entrance door open. They were here and the bloody salt was nowhere to be seen! Private sighed, cursing the lost salt and Kowalski's addiction to it while he went out of kitchen to welcome his seniors.

"I'm sorry, the dinner is almost-" The youngster's eyes opened wide as he noticed the amount of penguins across him.

Three.

Three.

_Three._

Not five.

"Skipper?" Private's voice trembled, he had already understood, but he had to ask. "Where-"

Skipper pushed Private aside and rushed towards his room, closing his door with a loud 'bam'. Rico shivered as his little legs couldn't carry his body and caused him to fall on his back flipper. Tears filled Kowalski's eyes, but the scientist struggled not to let them fall.

"They are-" Kowalski's voice was much worse than Private's. "They are… dead."

Private started shivering as he stepped backwards. "No." He whispered. "No." He muttered. "No." He said. "NO!" His voice finally became a scream ad he collapsed on the floor.

(…)

Private blinked a few times before his vision became clear. He tried to speak, but he had to clean his throat first.

He was in his room, on his bed. He sighed happily, it was just a nightmare. As soon as he got out of that door, Manfredi was going to greet him with a cynical comment about his sleep and Johnson would be preparing a breakfast for Private while he scolded Kowalski about working too much. And when Skipper asked him why he looked tired, he was going to tell his nightmare and Manfredi would burst in laughter before Rico put his flipper around Private's shoulders and Johnson comforted him saying it was just a dream.

His thoughts reached a dead and when he noticed Rico beside his bed. That wasn't normal. Yeah, it wasn't unusual for him to be in Private's room; but he never waited silently beside him instead waking him up with a huge explosion at his door or turning the metal music on at the last volume on Private's ultra-bass speakers that were gifted by Kowalski.

"It wasn't a dream." Private said as he trembled.

Rico silently shook his head.

"What happened?"

"Yu… faint."

"No, what happened to _them_?" Private wasn't sure he wanted to learn, but he had to know.

"Mah fault." Rico sobbed before suddenly getting mad and punching the metal wall so hard that caused his flipper to bleed.

"Rico, stop it!" Private held Rico's wounded flipper before it hit the wall again. Rico breathed heavily until he calmed down in Private's flippers; and when he stopped shivering, he sat on the bed, pulling his flipper away as he kept looking at the floor. "Rico, you must take care of your flipper. It's still bleeding."

Rico shook his head. "Nuh-uh. Ah fine." He replied with a sad grunt.

"And I'm sure it wasn't your fault. I mean-"

Rico stood up before grunting a bunch of angry words out of blue. _You weren't there! You can't say it wasn't my fault because it was, and Skipper and Kowalski must be hating me now! I hate myself too! And you should be hating me as well- _His self-anger instantly became sorrow again and he covered his eyes as he sobbed, blood of his flipper mixing with his tears and falling down his face.

"Rico…" Private started but he didn't know what to say, instead he got up and embraced Rico, letting the bully cry on his shoulders as he dropped endless tears as well.

(…)

Kowalski wasn't able to focus on anything.

All he wanted to do was getting his head away from reality and focus on the amusing world of science, but it only caused him to remember his loss. Everytime he put his mask on to mix hydrogen and fluorine, he remembered how instant Johnson started snoring in chemistry classes back at military school. Everytime he tried focusing on blueprints, he remembered how Manfredi never gave up on mocking him about his love for science. Everytime he took his toolbox to modify one of his old, failed inventions, he remembered how other five groaned altogether when he came up with a new idea.

But there weren't six penguins in his flat anymore. It was just him, a psychopath, a paranoid and a youngster.

It hurt to remember that if there weren't them, he would never be the guy he was now. About a week after he lost his grey feathers, while working in the lab of the military school, some jerks had showed up and started mixing Kowalski's chemistry experiments. He couldn't say a thing, he had just watched them to destroy the months' effort, until Johnson showed up. He had, in technical words, beat the shit out of them, and scolded Kowalski about not having self-confidence. Then he had said that Kowalski owed him one and demanded to follow him until they arrived cafeteria. He had introduced him to two penguins that Kowalski heard that were those famous criminal teens who they were getting educated instead going to jail for an unknown reason. He could never forget how joyful Johnson's voice was as he said "Manfredi, Rico; meet Kowalski, our new smarty-pants."

Those three unexpected friends taught Kowalski not to be silent and to defend himself. If there weren't them, Kowalski wouldn't notice how skilled he was, both as intelligence and brutal force - but of course he always preferred the first one. He would just remain as an insignificant private in military force forever, let alone being a part of such a prominent squad like he was the lieutenant of now!

He wanted to give up. He didn't want to be the lieutenant of the team that Johnson didn't lead. He didn't dare to sit on the dinner table without having Manfredi's jokes enjoy them. He would quit, find a mate -maybe convince Doris-, have chicks and invent an amnesia machine -maybe a spray- to forget his best years in his life, his military years with Manfredi and Johnson. He would have to forget Rico, Skipper and Private too, and-

"NO!" He yelled as he shook his head like crazy. He wasn't going to forget everything that made him Kowalski. He wasn't going to betray Rico, let Skipper down and leave Private alone. If he did, Manfredi and Johnson would have spent their exertions for nothing all those years. They were gone now, but Rico was alive and Kowalski owed him as much as he did them, not to mention he was still responsible of Skipper and Private. After all, he was the eldest of the team.

_Eldest because Johnson is dead now. _This thought sent chills to his spine as tears climbed up his eyes, but he wasn't able to stop them this time.

(…)

"Get some bandages." Private sent a painful smile to Rico. He had finally convinced him to take care of his flipper.

Rico grunted, telling him he would be back in two minutes, and closed the door behind him.

Private could finally cry now. He had been crying for a while, but he didn't want to cry out loud near Rico who was still blaming himself without telling Private about the… incident.

Now he could sob as much as he wanted to. How could they possibly be dead? It was impossible. Heroes couldn't die. Johnson was his idol, Manfredi was his annoying-but-caring older brother; and they were invincible. There was no way they were defeated with Johnson's amazing strategies and Manfredi's combat skills from his years on streets. It must have been a joke.

He wanted to shout "Eureka!" like Kowalski usually did. It was a joke, probably Manfredi's idea, with a slight possibility of Rico and Skipper's flippers in it. And how good actor Rico was, he had really cried. Private laughed, laughed until tears fell down his face, and his hysterical laughter eventually became sobs harder than before.

It was no joke. Half of the heroes that saved Private from those stinky streets of UK were dead and he couldn't do anything about it.

(…)

Rico didn't need bandage. The pain he felt didn't come from his flipper. Hell, this amount of blood couldn't even be compared to _their_ blood on battlefield.

He sat in the hallway. He didn't want to look for the first aid kit at that moment. He just wanted to be alone with his sadness, since Manfredi couldn't be with him anymore.

He hadn't been alone with sorrow since he was a chick, since the day he met Manfredi.

Rico was a grey-feathered trouble, even when he was just a cub. He ate what he stole from civil penguins, rode what he stole from labs. He had an endless love for speed and explosions as much as he had an endless stomach to use as storage.

Not so different from now, except he didn't have anyone around him.

Then he met Manfredi. A troublesome chick just like Rico. That's why he hated him first - street rules, every other gangster is your rival. So he fought him like he did other penguin gangs, but he couldn't win that battle. Hell, he was capable of defeat five or six adult penguins at the same time, but not another chick at his age? But Manfredi couldn't defeat him either, you could say it was tied up.

They remained as rivals for a while; fighting, insulting, racing… Pure rivalry. But the day he gained his signature scar crossing his face, it was Manfredi who stopped his fatal wound. Another street rule, Rico owed him his life, so he started being Manfredi's guard.

Someday he saved Manfredi's life as well, and they were equal. Rico could finally go back being his nemesis. But he didn't. He couldn't express exactly why, but it would be a lie if it had no effect that until he met Manfredi, he didn't know how to put his life behind another's, and he was just used to have him as a company.

Manfredi was satisfied about that. Soon they became best buddies; they got each other's back everytime they fought, shared everything they gained, destroyed huge buildings together - they both loved destruction in every way, but Manfredi loved killing more while Rico was addicted to explosions. They killed together, hunt together, hurt together; only time they were against each other was when they were racing, but it was no longer hostile.

Someday they were caught, but instead going to jail, they were forced to get educated as a part of military force. Rico never learned the reason why, they were told it was because their combat skills. But Manfredi preferred to go to jail, he hated soldiers, he wasn't going to become one. Rico didn't actually care about being a commando; he hoped he would be able to throw bombs away anytime he wanted to if he turned into one. Without Manfredi, he wasn't going anywhere though. He convinced Manfredi about anything was better than living in a box until the day they die, and since they weren't allowed to suicide -the judge had taken everything they had including the weapons, even Rico's guts were empty, allowing him to speak normally- it was worth trying.

But school life wasn't easy either if you were young criminals. All eyes turned to them when something bad happened, even when they were completely innocent; which they were for a while. Then they decided to deserve those hating eyes, that way they wouldn't get hurt; and they became the school's troublemakers. They carried the street life in the military school, they fought -or beat- someone everyday, painted walls, raced through hallways…

And then, Johnson stopped them.

Manfredi and Rico started hanging around Johnson. He was restricting them from harming living and unliving creatures, that was what he was dutied for after all. But the reason Manfredi and Rico let him was that Johnson treated them like penguins instead of twin trashcans like other penguins. He chatted with them, ate with them, defended them, turned their almost-supernatural skills to something unique and helpful. They were eventually friends with Johnson as well, and they didn't need to show their sadistic sides to the world anymore - not that Rico ever let his psychopathy disappear.

Now they were gone. Why? Because Rico was an idiot. And idiot who couldn't think fast enough to get them before the missile hit. He could have saved them, but he was too panicked to act. He was almost near them, but was too slow to move. And he was gonna be a commando? Yeah, right. The most he could do as a commando could be playing in a comedy show about a useless commando.

Rico watched his flipper bleed as he hated himself more with every new red drop on the floor.

(…)

Skipper threw another mug to the wall.

Before all the pieces were dropped to the floor, he grabbed a taboret to throw at the same spot. The taboret's legs were all chopped off, but that didn't reduce Skipper's anger at all.

_"So, your name is Skipper, huh?"_

Skipper broke one of the wooden legs in two.

_"Your father has named you Skipper?"_

He kicked his bed, but he didn't feel a pain on his fin at all.

_"He must have wanted you to be born as a leader."_

"SHUT UP!" Skipper yelled at the voices in his head.

_"Let's fulfill the old man's wish then, shall we?"_

"I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!" He shouted even louder as he ripped off his pillow.

It was useless, though. The memories kept playing in his head. It was wrong. He was _Skipper_, for the fish' sake, he wasn't supposed to feel this pain. He was supposed to stay calm, that's what skippers would do, not freaking out and breaking everything in the room.

_Calm down Skipper,_ he told himself. Useless again. He was a future leader, he had to get used to losing comrades. But he couldn't get use to _this_.

He wondered whether Johnson would get disappointed if he had seen Skipper like this… He instantly slapped himself. Of course he would get disappointed! Johnson had trained him to be a leader whole this time, and now he was freaking out, why, because he lost one or two comrades? He was destined to lose maybe more in the future, so he had to get a hold of himself!

Skipper took a breath as he tried to get calm - again. He failed - again. How couldn't he? Manfredi and Johnson weren't just "comrades". They were Skipper's _friends_. Maybe as a leader-in-training, Skipper had to learn not to get his feelings in, but… Johnson had never told him such a thing. In fact, Johnson always had a different look in his eyes when he turned to his teammates. Maybe it wasn't a weakness to feel this pain, maybe it was… natural.

He remembered how he admired Johnson when he was a chick at first grade. At military school, Johnson was surely number one student: He was great at strategies - both making his and guessing the opponent's, combat skills; he wasn't perfect at science and math but he wasn't bad either, shortly he was an ideal commando and the teachers loved him while the students admired. When he started hanging with those street boys, Skipper who was still an ordinary, weak penguin, had wondered why someone like Johnson would get along with those… things. To Skipper, Manfredi and Rico used to be nothing but huge mistakes to get educated in such a classified military school. Then trio became four when Johnson added Kowalski in, who Skipper didn't even hear about. Suddenly these four students became number one team of the school, despite two of them were old criminals. The whole school was surprised to see how skilled the team was, including Skipper - Johnson was the leader, Manfredi fought on the front line, Rico was the weapons expert while Kowalski was the brain of the team; and they synchronized better than fish and chips.

Someday Skipper gained courage to talk to Johnson. He caught them before they entered the dormitory after the classes ended. Skipper was feeling nervous; he was the only one in his class who dared to come near the 'awesome four'. He had thought about what he was going to say, but before he realized, the last sentence in the line left is beaks as first. "I want to join your team."

He cursed himself as eight eyes were staring at him with surprise. Damn, they were gonna laugh at him. He would laugh if a newly matured chick came across his team and suddenly told that he wanted to join them - not that Skipper had a team, if only he had one.

But they didn't laugh.

Johnson was first to speak. "Kowalski, who is this little guy?"

Kowalski narrowed his eyes for a second to recognize his junior before he started reporting. "Student #10214, Grade 5; Name: Skipper, Family: Penguins of Johansen territory, Age: 13 penguin years old. He is not -technically speaking- too _shiny _at any class, but he is known to be a fast learner, particularly martial arts."

"Wow 'Ski, you forgot to mention his species this time." Manfredi grinned.

Kowalski faceflippered. "Gah, how could I forget to state that?"

Rico rolled his eyes and grunted. _He is like me and 'Walski, what's the big deal? _But Skipper didn't used to be in capable of understanding Rico's long sentences back then.

"I think I would understand the definition Rico stated instead of some Latin jibber jabber." Johnson said with a sly smile, causing Kowalski to roll his eyes and cross his flippers.

"Fine, he is like me and Rico, how scientifical." Kowalski groused as he scowled.

"So, your name is Skipper, huh? Your father has named you Skipper?" Manfredi continued after he snickered. "Does it mean you're gonna 'dethrone' Johnson? Fine, I was getting bored of him anyway." He grinned as Johnson punched him playfully.

"He must have wanted you to be born as a leader, right Skipper?" Johnson said. "Let's fulfill the old man's wish then, shall we?"

The next day, Skipper had been 'mysteriously' transferred to their room - he was going to learn it was Kowalski's hacking skills later.

Johnson was his special trainer since then. He was training Skipper to be a leader, leaving him in hard situations sometimes. But Skipper had also learned to love the hard way, so he didn't complain; instead he focused on making Johnson proud more and more in every exercise - until Manfredi pulled him away, saying "It's my turn to play with the little brother, Johnny." before having a jimmy hit his face for calling Johnson 'Johnny'.

If there weren't Manfredi, Skipper would be desperately stressed about getting stronger, no matter how many times Johnson told him not to be. He would drag Skipper somewhere with lights, alcohol… and fights at later hours. Not without Rico, of course, Skipper couldn't remember a minute that he saw them separated… until today.

"You want a training?" Manfredi had said one time. "Then take it as a training, to learn how to _really_ fight. You aren't gonna fight against tenpins forever, and you have to wait until the graduation to go on _real_ missions; and wouldn't it be too late?"

_I and Manfredi didn't learn to fight in the school, _Rico had nodded.

"Of course, Rico and I don't come here for training. We want blood, drinks and girls. You should try that too, I mean, having fun."

Besides that, Manfredi was a fun guy to hang out with. He was funny and subtile, and if you can dare to call him that, Skipper's teacher about pranks and diving in danger.

Skipper felt tears coming up his eyes. He wasn't going to cry, he couldn't let himself to. He tried opening his door, but he had to clean all those broken furniture blocking it first.

"Rico, your flipper!" He definitely didn't expect to see him sitting in hallway, let alone seeing that flipper bleed that bad.

Rico jumped in shock when he heard Skipper's voice, he was so deep in his thoughts. Skipper closed the door behind him and rushed over the psycho.

"You must take care of that."

"Ah fine."

"No, you're not." Skipper took Rico's healthy flipper to get him up. "How in the hell you managed to cause it bleed this much?"

Rico shrugged before repeating "Ah fine." and pulling himself away from Skipper.

"I'm not gonna lose another friend of mine today, especially _not_ because of a stupid infection. C'mon, Rico."

"Ma'fredi dead."

Skipper was almost dropping first aid kit he had just reached, no one could dare to say it out loud yet - of course, he hadn't heard Kowalski after he got in his room.

"Jonson too. Wha'z da point?"

Then it hit Skipper. Johnson wouldn't be disappointed because he got -fairly- hurt, but he would be more than disappointed if the left ones dropped everything just because two of them died.

"Yes, they are dead, Rico." Skipper had to sigh before he continued. "But I'm still alive, right? I know I can't be Manfredi, but… Aren't I worthy enough?" He had never thought about it before. Rico and Manfredi were like one penguin, what if Rico left them too, or worse, decided to go behind Manfredi?

"Skipper don't hate meh?"

"Why would I, Rico?"

"Cuz it waz mah fault."

"Of course it wasn't!" Skipper looked at him with frowned eyes and opened beak, he was surprised to find out that Rico was blaming himself for whole this incident. "No one is to blame but that bastard Slovic, and we've already finished him off. Trust me Rico, even you couldn't stop that missile."

"Ah could get 'em b'for-"

"No, and you would get yourself killed as well. Losing two penguins is bad enough, I wouldn't want you to increase it to three."

"But-"

"It was impossible, Rico. And it's not just you who has to learn to live without them, so stop blaming yourself to make this worse."

Rico didn't reply, instead he gave his wounded flipper to Skipper to bandage it.

While Skipper was cleaning his wound, he suddenly said "Yu can't be Ma'fredi."

Skipper lifted his head surprised to look at Rico.

"But yu'r Skipper, 'n' yu'r az worthy az 'im."

Skipper smiled before he turned back to cleaning the wound. "You too, Rico. You too."

(…)

Kowalski lowered his eyes when the gravestones came into view. He took a small machine out to check if the holograms they left in their habitat were working fine, and put it back out of sight.

They stopped in front of the certain graves. Private took another step and started talking, technically Manfredi and Johnson couldn't hear them but Kowalski had never confronted Private with logical anti-theorems. Not about this.

"Manfredi, Johnson… You know what, Skipper got married this year. With a car decorative."

"She is a real lady." Skipper muttered angrily.

"Rico is dating a doll too. I'm waiting Kowalski to propose his abacus." Private gave a small laugh.

"Private also fell in love with a reindeer, a human nurse, a sea leopa-"

"I did not fall in love with Hunter!" Private turned to graves and quickly said "I didn't, really."

_And Kowalski isn't proposing his abacus, he still couldn't get over Doris, _Rico grunted.

Now this was plain nefarious. Kowalski couldn't help but bursting in tears as he cried "Doris!" in his flipper.

"Rico."

Rico instantly slapped Kowalski, not having Skipper repeat it twice.

"Skipper got married in Africa. We also traveled Europe, and we did it in a circus! Oh, and we went Africa from Madagascar, and went there from Antarctica, and you know what, you two were right; Antarctica wasn't worth to wonder at all." Private took a breath before he spoke again. "We finally got back to the zoo, and the lemurs from Madagascar came along-"

"I don't think we should get 'em a dead headache talking about Ringtail, Private." Skipper interrupted.

"Yeah, you both would hate them. But they are really nice inside."

"And as you can see, I taught him martial arts but I couldn't make him stop being naïve."

"Skipper, will you please stop interrupting my words?"

"For the ice and sticks' sake, you helped a _sea leopard_!"

"And I don't regret it. Anyway, Manfredi, Johnson… It's been five years since you passed away. Lots of things have changed; Skipper became really similar to Johnson-"

"Except Johnson wasn't this paranoid, he never liked unhealthy beverages like coffee-"

"I said _similar_, Kowalski. Skipper is even training me like you trained him, Johnson. And Rico's love to explosions became a sickness that we must keep under control, Kowalski's inventions became more complicated, yet much more dangerous; each time he invents something the world comes near end - _literally. _And I changed, I faced several archenemies, I even got a nemesis-"

"A sna'l." Rico snickered.

"You've seen how dangerous he was! And he is Kowalski's nemesis now, long story. All of us dated several girls - okay, Kowalski didn't, same reason Rico mentioned earlier. I… I wish you were here to smack his head for this, Johnson…" Private's eyes were starting to get teary. "…and I wish you would be mocking him for being stuck over a girl, Manfredi. I… We miss you both dearly, and…" Now he was crying, his tears were falling so fast that even Kowalski's vision was blurry… Wait, it was Kowalski, he was crying as well. "I hope you're happy up there-"

"Up there?" Skipper snapped as he cleaned his eyes, apparently he cried too. "You really think Manfredi went _'up there'_?"

Rico pointed at Johnson's gravestone before pointing upwards and grunting "Up there.", then he pointed at Manfredi's gravestone and pointed down afterwards. "Down there." He also had tears in his eyes, Kowalski was glad he wasn't the only one who got emotionally outburst.

"Maybe he did. We can't know that until we went there too."

Kowalski didn't think so. He and Manfredi both didn't believe afterlife, besides, Manfredi hated even the thought of heaven. He thought there was boring.

"Goodbye, guys. We'll come again next year. I wish you could come with us, you would _love _Manhattan." Private sniffed before stepping back beside his elders.

Four penguins turned back to go back near their flipper-made plane. Kowalski looked at Skipper as he realized when exactly he changed from a brother to be protected to a father to protect them. But he had promised Skipper not to ask any questions about Denmark, so he just asked an uncertain question. "Sir, how exactly did you decide to become so alike to Johnson?"

But Skipper was intelligent, he sure understood what Kowalski was aiming for. He sent a sly glare to his lieutenant as he replied with an uncertain answer as well. "Kowalski, I thought you were the one who said I was a fast learner."

"But-"

"C'mon soldier. Let's get back home."


End file.
